The aim of the operation was to pierce the satellite’s fuel tank and destroy the 1,000 pounds of toxic hydrazine fuel inside. It is not known yet whether the missile succeeded in doing that.

Protecting the public from the dangerous fuel was Washington’s avowed intention. Both Russia and China, however, voiced suspicions that the operation served a military purpose.

According to a Feb. 20 article from Russian state-run news agency Ria Novotsi, there were two probable reasons for the missile strike. The first was to keep the wayward spy satellite’s contents secret; the second was to “to test anti-satellite weapons on the quiet.”

Beijing echoed those suspicions. Communist party newspaper the People’s Daily leveled charges of hypocrisy at Washington, writing that America “has often accused other countries of vigorously developing military space technology, but faced with the Chinese-Russian proposal to restrict space armaments, it runs in fear from what it claimed to love,”

USA Today reports that China and Russia have led international efforts to ban weapons in space and the use of weapons on objects in space.

In that context, the paper concludes, “On one hand, the United States should be wary of calls for disarmament from its two likeliest global antagonists. On the other, avoiding a ruinously expensive space arms race is a worthwhile goal for a nation already fighting two wars abroad and struggling with a growing national debt.”

Although officials will not know for sure whether the missile strike destroyed USA 193’s fuel tank, The New York Times reports that “one official who received a late-night briefing on the mission expressed confidence that the impact had been so powerful that the fuel tank probably had been ruptured.”

Noah Shachtman of Wired’s Danger Room blog looks at the history of the USA 193 spy satellite. According to Schachtman, the satellite “is widely believed to be part of a classified surveillance in space program known as Future Imagery Architecture, or FIA. And FIA is known as one of the biggest defense-technology boondoggles in recent history—‘perhaps the most spectacular and expensive failure in the 50-year history of American spy satellite projects,’ The New York Times once wrote.”

China reacted to the missile launch by accusing the United States of having double standards regarding space armament. America “has often accused other countries of vigorously developing military space technology, but faced with the Chinese-Russian proposal to restrict space armaments, it runs in fear from what it claimed to love,” wrote the Communist party newspaper, the People’s Daily.

Writing for Russian state-run news agency Ria Novotsi, Yury Zaitsev argues that Washington’s real reasons for shooting down USA 93 are twofold. The first is to keep the satellite’s contents secret, and the second is to test and showcase its anti-satellite weaponry.

The Wall Street Journal compares last night’s operation with the incident last January when Beijing shot down one of its weather satellites. The Journal states that the United States was very forthcoming with the specifics of its plans, while China’s missile test was “unannounced … The contrast between the two episodes is that China's made the world more uncertain and dangerous, while a U.S. success will make it safer.”

Bruce W. MacDonald, former assistant director for national security in the White House science adviser's office, writes in the Los Angeles Times that the launch may spur similar actions from China and Russia: “Washington should not be surprised when Beijing exploits this launch to justify its own burgeoning anti-satellite program. The U.S. action will give China, Russia and others an excuse to develop and test comparable capabilities, claiming that they too need to keep their populations safe from falling satellites. China may well feel freed from the pledge it made last year not to test its anti-satellite weapons again.”

New York Times writer Gail Collins says that although she originally supported the operation “1,000 percent … as details emerged, the plan began to seem somewhat less attractive.” Commenting on the Pentagon’s argument that the satellite’s fuel could poison unwitting civilians, Collins writes, “If you were, say, sitting on the porch reading the newspaper when a satellite plummeted into the backyard, emitting foul-smelling fumes, what are the chances you’d decide to stay very close to it and inhale a lot of it? … The price tag for shooting USA 193 is up to $60 million. Try making a list of the threats to your personal safety that could be reduced for that amount of money.”

USA Today comments on the launch’s potential impact on efforts to prevent the militarization of space. “China and Russia have led the international calls for a treaty that would ban deploying weapons in space and using or threatening to use weapons against space-based objects … On one hand, the United States should be wary of calls for disarmament from its two likeliest global antagonists. On the other, avoiding a ruinously expensive space arms race is a worthwhile goal for a nation already fighting two wars abroad and struggling with a growing national debt.”

The AP reports that manmade space debris weighing two tons or more fall uncontrolled to Earth every two to three weeks. According to the Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies, about 12 million pounds of space junk has survived re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere over the past 40 years. Nonetheless, Lottie Williams of Tulsa, Okla., is the only person to ever report being hit by the falling debris; a small piece of a discarded Delta rocket hit her shoulder in 1997. She was not injured.